Research

Europe is home to approximately 4,200 fast growing, high-tech companies that we refer to as “scaleups”. This distinction serves to separate this group from startups, i.e. to draw a line between early stage initiatives and real companies that are producing revenue and employment. If the count is restricted to only countries who are current members of the European Union, the number of scaleups goes down to 3,950 and the capital raised to $56B.

This SEP Monitor is a follow up to “Portugal Rising”, a report we published at the end of 2015, it gives an updated view of the ecosystem a year and a half down the line, and we are happy to say the positive momentum has continued for Portugal. The scaleup scene in Portugal is extremely promising and gives hope to Southern Europe lagging scale-up ecosystems.

The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) says Finland is the best place for companies to find risk capital. Our recent research confirms that evidence. In Finland, we tracked 126 scaleups able to raise cumulatively $1B total in financing.

“Norway has been a bit of an underdog in the Scandiwegian startup scene for a few years. But in just a few short years has gone from been a pretty bleak affair to being a real – if nascent – startup ecosystem”. This is what Haje Jan Kamps wrote on TechCrunch last June1.